How To Optimise Your Amazon Listings To Stand Out From Your Competitors

Now that Amazon has launched in Australia, brands should be scrambling to get their products listed on the site. But once you’ve listed your products, what more can you do to gain an edge over the competition and maximise sales?

The answer is optimisation. In this article, I look at the three key optimisation areas with specific insights into best practice strategies to maximise your success in the Amazon Marketplace.

Optimise Your Amazon Product Pages

Optimising your product pages is a simple way to boost your ranking and increase your conversion rates. However, there’s more to it than meets the eye.

To break it down, here are some tactics you can use:

Use high-quality images: As a starting point, make sure your images are in line with Amazon’s minimum image requirements. Your main image is your most important, so it needs to be well-lit and fill 80% of the frame. Use additional images (5-6 is best) to show the product from different angles, including packaging and benefits, as well as lifestyle images if needed. Put simply, the better your images, the more clicks you’ll get.

Use long keyword-rich product titles: Long titles with relevant keywords will help your products rank well – as long as they contain all the right information and are easily readable. This includes the brand name, product variant, unit size/quantity, and keywords (i.e. what the product actually is).

Use bullet points that highlight USPs: After reading the product listing, bullet points play a key role in influencing the shopper’s decision. You can write up to five bullet points to flesh out the key features and benefits of the product. Start with the most important points first, highlighting the USPs. The writing should be informative, succinct and coherent.

Get your pricing right: The level of competition on Amazon makes it hard to have the right pricing, all of the time. That’s why you need to keep it flexible. You should be adjusting your prices according to what competitors are doing, your product manufacturing costs, as well as what your customers expect.

Use good copywriting techniques for your product descriptions: One of the simplest ways to stand out from the crowd and generate more sales is with good copywriting. This starts with differentiating your product, finding the benefits that none of your competitors offer. To increase the chances of Google ranking the page highly, all content needs to be unique. Remember, quality is often more important than length.

Find an offer people can’t say no to: To make your product stand out, try adding more to your offer. This could include “bonuses” with the product, such as a free exercise book to go with a piece of health equipment. Whatever it is, the idea is to provide extra incentives for shoppers to choose your product – not your competitor’s.

Check your categories: If you don’t pick the right category for your product, your whole optimisation strategy can fall apart. The simplest way to determine the right categories is to find what categories your competitors are having the most success in, and use the same ones.

Test your product pages: To test how your optimisation strategy is travelling, use a tool such as Jungle Scout. This will give you a breakdown of how each part of your listing is performing, so you can determine what is and isn’t working and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Generate Lots Of Reviews on Amazon

Don’t underestimate the power of reviews. Not only do they help your products rank in search results, they often make all the difference when it comes to customers buying your product. One of the best ways to generate reviews is through automated emails sent to customers a number of days after they’ve made a purchase (usually the time at which your customer will be at their peak happiness) – find out the best way to do this and a nifty tool that works on Amazon here.

Another option is to use Amazon’s Early Reviewer Program, which allows select customers to write reviews of your products for a small fee. However, if you’d rather not spend money, try requesting reviews from customers who’ve given you positive feedback, or those you’ve provided customer service to in the past. Ultimately, the more reviews you can get on Amazon, the better your overall sales will be.

Promote Your Products

The more sales you’re getting, the higher Amazon will rank your products – so make sure you use this to your advantage through advertising your product listings – even if it does cost you more money than selling direct on your site – the organic traffic generated through higher ranking products is well worth it.

Here are some ways to do this:

Amazon’s own advertising options: These include sponsored products, dynamic ads, display ads, video ads, and ads through their programmatic platform (on their own site and around the web). This will help people discover and purchase your products.

Search engine advertising: Using Google AdWords or Bing Ads can work well for Amazon Marketplace, helping drive traffic to your product listings and improve sales.

“Amazon only” discounts: To help build initial sales velocity which is important for your product rankings you should offer “Amazon only” discounts to your current customers to encourage them to buy through Amazon. One way to do this is utilising email marketing campaigns that target your best customers with substantial discounts that encouraging them to buy through the platform and then leave you a review.

Build links for search engine optimisation (SEO): By building links to your products, you can help those product pages rank in Google or other search engines. This will get you more traffic, and ultimately, more sales. The key is to ensure the links are high quality and on topic – whether it’s from a blog, website or other resources.

Ready To Stand Out on Amazon?

Amazon is certainly a competitive marketplace. However, the more effort you put into optimising your listings, the easier it will be for you to stand out from the crowd. Along with everything mentioned in this article (and the 7 key tactics in this one), make sure you keep on top of new Amazon features too. For example, when Fulfilment by Amazon launches in Australia, it could be worth getting on to it straight away. This will help prioritise your listing over others and gain an edge over the competition.

About The Author - Duncan Jones

I am a data-driven digital marketing specialist from New Zealand and im passionate about helping businesses and marketing professionals improve their digital marketing results. I have a focus on performance marketing, insist on tracking everything and love optimising & improving campaigns for clients across a huge range of industries. You can find me on LinkedIn here or you can contact me here.